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Showing posts from October, 2026

CPI September 2026: Shelter Raised Core Inflation and Lowered the 3.7 Percent Headline

On October 14, 2026, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index rose 3.7 percent in the 12 months through September, while the index excluding food and energy, the core rate, rose 2.6 percent after 2.4 percent through August. Shelter, the largest single block in both measures, rose 3.2 percent over the same 12 months. For anyone reading the two rates side by side, that one component pushes them in opposite directions: it lifts core from 2.0 percent to 2.6 and holds the all-items rate at 3.7 instead of 4.0, so the claim that housing is pushing inflation up is true of one number and false of the other. The figures come from the BLS Consumer Price Index news release for September 2026 and its first three tables. This post follows the shelter line through them: what the index counts as shelter, why September's monthly shelter increase of 0.4 percent is not a rent number, and how much of each 12-month rate shelter accounts for once the rounding comes off. T...

Power Grid Emergency 13 States: The Count Is PJM's Footprint, Not the Strain

On October 12, 2026, Energy Secretary Chris Wright signed DOE Order No. 202-26-50 , a Federal Power Act Section 202(c) emergency order for PJM Interconnection, the grid operator whose region the order describes as all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia. From October 13 through October 16, it let PJM dispatch listed power plants that might exceed their environmental permit limits, and call on backup generators as a last resort before, or during, an Energy Emergency Alert 3. For a reader in one of those 13 states, the count is a map of where PJM operates, not of where the grid was short: PJM's own filing found the most acute strain in three zones, and the order ties the 61,591 MW of anticipated generation outages to planned outages in the autumn outage season. What the Count of 13 States Measures The count comes from footnote 3 of the order, not from its findings. The footnote's sentence reads: “The PJM Region includes all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, India...

IMF World Economic Outlook October 2026: World Growth Is 3.1 or 2.5 Percent

The International Monetary Fund published the IMF World Economic Outlook, October 2026 on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, projecting world growth of 3.1 percent in 2026, down from 3.5 percent in 2025, and 3.4 percent in 2027. That 3.1 percent adds up world output with purchasing-power-parity weights; a few rows lower in the same Table 1.1, world growth based on market exchange rates is 2.5 percent for 2026. Anyone setting the IMF figure beside a U.S. number, a Federal Reserve projection or a dollar-based forecast now has to match the weights, the calendar and the revision baseline first. The report carries two weightings and three calendars. Its U.S. forecast of 2.3 percent for 2026 is an annual average, while the Fed's 2.3 percent median of September 16, 2026 runs fourth quarter over fourth quarter. And its 0.2 point upgrade to 2027 world growth sits beside a 0.2 point cut to that year's fourth-quarter growth, both measured against April. Two World Growth Rates in One Table ...

EIA Winter Fuels Outlook 2026-27: The $1,196 Electric Figure Is Not Just Heating

The U.S. Energy Information Administration released the EIA Winter Fuels Outlook 2026–27 on October 6, 2026, forecasting that households heating mainly with natural gas will spend an average of $640 this winter, 9% less than last winter, while heating oil households will spend $2,115, up 21%. Those figures read like this winter's heating bills, but EIA counts every end use of a home's main heating fuel, so the $1,196 forecast for electrically heated homes covers that home's electricity use outside air conditioning, not space heating alone. For anyone comparing fuels, budgeting for the season, or setting the outlook beside the September CPI published on October 14, 2026, that changes what the numbers can answer: the outlook prices a fuel account, not a furnace. Three more readings follow from the same release. A flat national weather assumption hides a Northeast forecast to be 12% milder and a West forecast to be 25% colder. A falling natural gas price forecast sits besid...